One of the singular pleasures of my life has been building stuff. Since I was 8 years old and built a dam across a creek at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey thereby flooding the adjacent parking lot for the NCO’s housing (three feet deep), I have built things.

For the record, I got a full grown adult ass chewing, but my Dad was very interested in how I formed the local kids into a work force, stole the cinder blocks from the Post Engineers who were working on a culvert and crossover on the creek, and my design — which worked just fine. [My first startup?]

Later, when a combat engineer in Korea, I would build a series of gabion dams down a watercourse that flooded a village across from our base. It was a very similar design. That village never flooded again.

Anyway, there are those in life who are builders. They like to build things. I think I wanted to be one from an early age and I got to do it. I am addicted to the smell of sawdust.

I built a lot of things including high rise office buildings, land development, and renovating old office buildings, apartments, shopping centers. It always takes a team.

One American Center at Sixth and Congress in the ATX. I oversaw its creation. It was a lot of fun.

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